


Waiting Under

by AutumnKnight17



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:06:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnKnight17/pseuds/AutumnKnight17
Summary: If, in Ba Sing Se, Zuko had helped, no one ever had to know, right?
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Larajaleria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larajaleria/gifts).



_It's just in your head_ , he chants to himself silently, forcing himself to focus on the game. He feels more than hears Azula's approach and pushes himself into the ground, and then stands up at full force once her foot hits the middle of his back. The ball goes rocketing into the other team's court and Zuko knows he's done the right thing, for once. He turns around to smirk with his sister, but his eyes catch the flickering wave of the ocean again. _It can't be_.

"What's the matter, Zuzu?" Azula asks him, and she's still smiling in that sinister way she smiles, but there was something else, something curious. 

"Nothing, Azula," he says, shrugging his shoulders back, because it's the only thing he can do, it's not like he can tell her that he thinks the Avatar is here, the Avatar he secretly helped escape—that's suicide, both political and life-ending suicide. 

She eyes him for a moment, before it's broken off by the men immediately flocking to Ty Lee, and he sighs an internal sigh of relief.

She's beginning to suspect things, and it doesn't bode well for him. 

Behind her, the ocean fluctuates again, but Zuko turns a blind eye.

___

"Why isn't he noticing us?" Toph asks, stomping her foot on the soft wet sand petulantly, "I can feel his heartbeat getting faster whenever he looks at the water, he definitely knows we're here at this point." 

"This was a long shot," Sokka says, "I knew it wouldn't work but Katara insisted." 

"He helped us out in Ba Sing Se, he said he didn't believe in capturing the Avatar anymore and he's the only reason we escaped," she argues, although she'd argued the same point multiple times now, enough that it was tedious to even keep it up, but she knew he was their only shot at surviving inside Fire Nation borders for a long period of time. 

"He helped us but he didn't come with us," Aang said softly, sitting cross-legged on the ocean floor, getting wet sand on his shorts, "there's no guarantee he'll help us again."

"Doesn't he deserve the benefit of the doubt?" Katara pleads, and feels the ocean pressing more insistently on her.

_"Zuko!" She yells, keeping the wave up. His head snaps towards her, the flames in his hands brighten and get bigger, and then extinguish completely._

_"Katara go!" He mouths, and then his hands burst into fire again, he sends a flame towards a wall, "that collapses," he says again, lowly still walking in bending stance, as though he is primed to attack, "when you see Azula do this," he says, then points his middle and pointer finger up and does a bending stance Katara isn't unfamiliar with, but isn't exactly sure what it entails, "lower the water but make it twice as thick," he says, "I'm going to dive through it, and when you see my hair go through the water, run as fast as you can and don't look back."_

_All she can do is nod, because she can see blue flames getting closer and closer already._

"Just a little more," she says. 

"If he doesn't notice by tonight, we're going," Sokka says. 


	2. Chapter 2

Katara's elbows and shoulders creak and groan with effort, and her muscles tremble trying to keep her arms in the air. Aang fell asleep an hour or two ago, and she's since been holding the ocean up by herself. If she clears the water a little she can see Zuko on the beach, at a campfire. 

His scarring has gotten better, but not by a lot. 

"You feel guilty, don't you?" Toph asks suddenly, she's had her eyes closed for a while, back against the sand, and Katara had assumed she'd fallen asleep with the boys. 

"What? No." Katara denies, and then fumbles to resume her bending. She's been keeping the water above them going with the waves, but when she relaxes they become still. If she lets the water above them be completely still, it becomes see through, and no one above the surface but Zuko can know.

"I can tell when you're lying still," Toph says, and runs her hands around the sand, "it's a little more confusing to see than usual, but I can still see." 

"What do I even have to be guilty for?" She asks. 

_She panics. When Azula extinguishes her flames and falls into the bending stance that Zuko showed her, Katara panics._

_She raises the wave until it hits the ceiling, against Zuko's advice to lower it—she panics._

_She panics._

_Zuko bursts through the water, landing with his back to her, his muscles spasm and twitch, one of his arms rise like he's a marionette, like he's possessed, and a huge flame comes out of his palm, probably the biggest Katara has ever seen a bender produce, and it practically explodes out of his skin. It hits the wall hard, and the wall comes crumbling down. An escape.  
Zuko goes limp. Katara panics._

_She panics._

_She leaves._

"He has more scars now," Toph says, "I don't know what they look like but Sokka said so, a while ago." 

"Those aren't my fault," Katara says, and she can feel herself tell the lie. She's said it a dozen times now, to herself, to calm down from nightmares, _not her fault, not her fault, not her fault._

"They aren't," Toph agrees, "but you don't believe that." 

_No_ , Katara thinks to herself, unknowingly stirring the waves above them that much harder, _I don't believe it_.

___

Mai won't turn around, Zuko knows, he's watching her reflection in the water, but he still hopes she does.

She gets farther, her back gets smaller, until he doesn't see it anymore, but he waits and waits. 

Until he sees something odd, a circle in the ocean, not more than 20 metres away from him, with the water completely still. He watches it, and its waves resume, but he knows already.

_Katara._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who gave this their kudos and commented! I will be continuing this for Lara but I warn you I never have a good update schedule and I am having to rewatch the series to know properly where I'm at so this'll take even longer than usual ._. IM SORRY IN ADVANCE EVERYONE THANK YOU FOR ALL THE LOVE

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my girl Lara it's her birthday today and she absolutely loves Zutara so this is my shitty birthday gift :(( I'm definitely updating and making this longer but this was super last minute only thought it up yesterday so yes HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH


End file.
